We’ve responded to the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Technical Skills Survey 2025, which aims to better understand the present and future technical skills required to drive the UK’s science and innovation sector.
Our Response
1. The UK’s research and innovation system is critically dependent on technical professionals. In line with UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) definition, this group includes individuals who apply proven techniques and procedures to solve practical problems, provide technical support, and enable research and innovation across laboratories, facilities and field environments. These professionals are vital to the functioning of national facilities and large-scale research infrastructures, ensuring that world-leading science can be delivered safely, efficiently and sustainably. We highlight the urgent need to secure a sustainable pipeline of technical talent to protect future capability across STFC facilities and the wider science and innovation ecosystem.
2. We identify the Technician Commitment pillars as interconnected challenge areas affecting the technical workforce: visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability. Technical professionals are often described as an ‘invisible workforce’, with their roles ill-defined and their contributions under-recognised in institutional strategies, funding decisions and national policy.
3. We recommend that STFC and the wider sector take targeted action to improve recognition of technical professionals, including clearer attribution in research, better inclusion in grant budgeting and more consistent approaches to acknowledging technical contributions in appraisals, career frameworks and promotion processes.
4. We call for stronger, better-defined career pathways and accessible professional development for technical staff. This includes investment in leadership development, mentoring, mobility and tailored training, alongside action to remove barriers faced by underrepresented groups and disabled technical professionals.
5. We emphasise the importance of long-term workforce sustainability. This requires addressing retention challenges, ageing demographics, pay and reward, and the underuse of mechanisms such as the Apprenticeship Levy, as well as supporting T Level pathways and degree apprenticeships as credible routes into technical careers.
6. We outline the Institute’s current programmes that directly support these priorities, including the Technician Commitment, national leadership programmes, knowledge exchange placements, and work on T Level industry placements and frontier technologies.
Prepared by: Farheen Akhtar (Institute Policy and Engagement Manager)